Dress shirts, and in particular men's dress shirts, are typically cleaned in dry cleaning establishments. The general process is to first launder the shirt and then press the shirt on pressing devices specifically configured to press different areas of the shirt.
As is well known, pressing generally involves the placing of a certain portion of the shirt on a pressing buck and then applying a heating pressing head to press the shirt between the buck and pressing head. One of the drawbacks of using pressing bucks and pressing heads is that a large amount of force and heat is applied to buttons on the shirt. This force and heat leads to button breakage. Before returning the shirt to the customer, these buttons must be replaced which increases the cost of the cleaning.
One style of men's shirt includes a collar with lateral ends which may be buttoned together typically under the tie. This is accomplished by placing a button on the end of a small cloth extender which extends from one of the lateral edges of the collar. A cloth extender which extends from the other lateral edge of the collar forms a button hole. When the collar is worn about the neck, the lateral edges of the collar are opposing each other on each side of the tie and may be drawn toward each other and held in that position by buttoning the button in the button hole. These collars, however, present a particular problem in pressing. Typically the collar is laid out upon the buck and the pressing head is brought down upon the collar to apply a pressing force and heat. This force and heat is also applied on the button causing the collar button to shear in many cases.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved collar pressing apparatus for pressing shirt collars while reducing the incidents of button breakage due to the pressing of the collar.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a improved device which may be used with a collar pressing apparatus to facilitate the pressing of collars while reducing the breakage of any buttons or snaps attached to the collars. A related object is to provide such a device which may be easily attached and detached from the collar pressing apparatus so it may be selectively employed for those shirts having buttons or snaps on the collar.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide an improved device for use with collar pressing apparatus to protect buttons or snaps located on the collar but which does not interfere with the normal pressing action on the collar.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a device which may be used with a collar pressing apparatus to protect collar buttons or snaps and which may be easily used to protect the buttons whether the buttons are attached to one side of the collar or the other.